#vss365 – August 2019 – #2

Week 2 of participating in the very popular #vss365 challenge on Twitter. The aim. To write a daily Very Short Story in less than 280 characters, a single tweet. Yes, that’s characters! Not words. Here are my efforts from my first full week.

The prompts themselves are seemingly random single words, the whim of that month’s challenge setter. This months fun has been organised by @LadySabrielle. I’ve taken some liberties with formatting simply because WordPress is not Twitter and to make it easier to read.

The cover image this week is a new vineyard discovered right in the heart of hops country.

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Sunday 11th August – Vermillion

“What colour is that?”
“#vermillion red”
“Which?”
“What!”
“Vermillion or red?”
“Fair point, maybe it’s more sanguine”
“At best auburn”
“More carnelian surely”
“It’s not that dark, I’d say cinnabar”
“Either way can you get it cleaned up?”
“Ok, give me a hand with the body”

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Monday 12th August – Shell

echo ‘es, through my #shell. I see a world, an endless hierarchical vista of seedy paths and familiar daemons. Where tired pilgrims stare upon the infinite with their trusty cat. And throw dark sacrifice into the void. Their words lost to the eternal darkness’>/dev/null

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Tuesday 13th August – Renegade

“Stop! Continue on this path and there will be consequences. You’ll become a #renegade, a pariah, outcast amongst your people. For the rest of your days, you’ll need one eye looking over your shoulder” he said menacingly.

“So be it!” she said snagging the last doughnut.

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Wednesday 14th August – Stubborn

With #stubborn determination, he pulled himself up again. He had hardly made it to his feet before another wild swing sent him sprawling. Tired, bruised and defeated he lay there looking up at his nemesis.

“I think we’ll call it day there,” said the skating instructor.

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Thursday 15th August – Explosion

A lifetime of training, muscles straining, he waits.
Breath slow, total control, he waits.
Adrenalin flows, the world slows, he waits.
The crack of the gun, an #explosion to eclipse a sun, he’s gone.
Down the track, he’ll never look back, until he’s won.

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Friday 16th August – Symphony

From the roof, the lights of the city stretched far to the horizon, a complex pattern of glinting colour. A living #symphony of both light and sound. She held its pulsing heartbeat in her hand and slowly squeezed, until the city lay silent in darkness, “Shhh, sleep now”‘.

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Saturday 17th August – Imagine

The rainbow started at the fridge, danced across the kitchen cabinets through meadows of vibrant flowers before meandering down to a sky blue lake nestled aside the dishwasher. A truly breathtaking vista.

“WHO THE HELL …”

“I can’t #imagine” she said hiding the crayons.